WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The nation’s premier taxpayer watchdog group, the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW), today congratulated the 233 House members who took a first bold step forward to get the record $1.5 trillion budget deficit under control and voted to eliminate any further funding for an alternate engine for the Air Force’s Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). The final vote on the bi-partisan amendment to the Full-Year Continuing Resolution (CR) for Fiscal Year 2011 offered by Reps. Tom Rooney (R-Fla.) and John Larson (D-Conn.) was 233 to 198.
“By any measure, today’s House vote to finally zero out funding for this wasteful engine signals a new direction for this Congress, and hopefully for the fiscal wellbeing of the country,” said CCAGW President Tom Schatz. “In the face of opposition by two presidents, two secretaries of defense and all of the Pentagon’s top brass, Congress had nonetheless earmarked more than $1.2 billion for the program since 2004. The engine was finally unplugged by a phalanx of committed reformers who are determined to restore some sanity to this budget. CCAGW led the fight for many years to eliminate the alternate engine, and today, the collaborative effort of the nation’s most prominent fiscally conservative organizations and members of Congress who heeded the message sent by taxpayers last November to end earmarks and cut wasteful spending had its first success in the 112th Congress. There are colossal budget battles ahead and members of Congress, especially the new fiscal conservatives, will need to be prepared to take many more votes like the one they took today,” concluded Schatz.
The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) is the lobbying arm of Citizens Against Government Waste, the nation’s largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.